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4/12/12
It's that time of year again. The air smells fresh and I started missing the herb garden that I had in years gone by. So, I thought, why don't I invest in a few little pots of herbs? I did. I bought thyme, oregano, basil, fennel, mint, and even stevia and one strawberry plant. I thought that I was 'all set' to enjoy fresh herbs in my soups. But each morning, I was finding that some little creature had 'beat me to it'. The fennel and one oregano plant in particular were missing their leaves, with only the stems left poking up from the roots. As soon as I could, I went to the hardware store and bought green, plastic-coated, wire and green painted stakes to hold it up. Yesterday, I mowed my front and back lawn and erected my little 'fort' to protect the pots of herbs. (Cut my finger and my palm, but that will heal.)

I suspect the neighbor's cat, but squirrels or birds are other possibilities. In the end, I spent more to protect the herbs than I'd spent on the herbs themselves. I just hope that my city codes people aren't annoyed by the green wire 'fort' beside my front porch. I ran across this website with a page on growing herbs. It looks pretty good, so I wanted to share it here. - jus'
http://www.garden...rowse/herb

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Thanks for the website, Jus! Raccoons are also a likely suspect as far as who's eating your herbs. Down here, anyway, just about anything can be (rightfully) attributed to raccoons. When I used to work as a camp counselor we would often take the kids down to the cafeteria only to find that all of the trashcans had been overturned and spread everywhere. And what kind of little footprints do you think we saw trailing away from the trashcans, through the dirt, and out into the woods beyond? Yep, raccoons.

I would love to have a garden out here for flowers and some vegetables, but the area I live in is too small and urban. I don't have any kind of yard around my apartment, nor anywhere to set up pots for plants except maybe in my little kitchen windowsill. I would like to move next year to a place with a yard, not just for me but for my dog too. I think she'd like it a lot better. Of course that costs money, so you know... we'll see I guess!

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4/15/12
I have a huge yard, and yet, with the extreme Texas heat and (often) drought in Summer, even a little herb garden requires watering to stay alive. There have been times that the heat was so bad, I felt like 'it's them or me',... and I wouldn't go stand outside to water my poor plants even through they were dying. Oh yes... And if you go outside at night, the mosquitoes and chiggers are vicious. So this is the reason that, this time, I've put the coarse wire screen enclosure right beside the front porch. That's where the spicket is with the garden hose attached. And the front of the house becomes shady after about 2:00 in the afternoon. - jus'

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along with raccoons, we have possums and they eat all kinds of things. Though I didn't promote it, sometimes before I could stop him, my late Lab would catch and kill possums and coons if they found their way into the fenced yard Sometimes we have found corn cobs or apple cores in the yard that I'm wondering if a possum hid and dragged around. I've seen them in my folks yard eating apples.

I love fresh herbs and have been considering some kinda small potted "window garden" but otherwise am not involved in yard/landscaping or gardening at all. The previous homeowner had done all kinda stuff like that and had bird-feeders and birdbaths and benches and everything.

We actually have a handy-person guy here at the moment doing some yard upkeep, weed-pulling, fixing gutters and so on. He pulled out <from the ground> and fixed the mailbox and gave us some thoughts about some issues with the front porch/step and pavement in that area, which an inspector would find the way it is now, and dislike.
Neither of us like getting involved in yard-work or traditional gardening and with the dogs we don't do any chemicals and pretty much just have hubby mow.

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4/18/12
Through the years (some years more than others), I've had the sometimes perplexing experience of lying in bed and hearing what sounds like the scampering of squirrels across the top of my roof. There would be the thump of the initial landing on the roof (probably with the pecan tree beside my house being the 'diving board'), and then the patter of little footsteps for the lenght of the house, until the 'punto de desborde' (jumping off point) at the far end of the house. But at least once, I heard footsteps so heavy that it scared me that it was a 'man' running lengthwise my house. To this day, I don't know what could have been so large as to sound like a full-sized human on my roof.

Oh that I could hire someone to cut my lawn and pull weeds for me! I don't have the money to pay to have this done now, being a student living on Financial Aid. Small potted plants are all that I can handle for now. I'd love to plant more things,... edibles especially,... but Texas is no paradise. Everything takes work, time, and money to keep it alive,... comodities that I don't have right now. - jus'

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Jus,

I've had experiences similar to that too! When I lived in a house (and not on the bottom floor of an apartment building) I would hear a very loud thump, and then what sounded like a human or small pony running up and down the length of my roof. It took a while for me to finally figure out what it was... my cat. Yes, my 18 lb cat was heavy enough that when he climbed up a tree and landed on the roof, it actually sounded like a person stomping around up there. I wonder if you have neighborhood cats climbing that pecan tree and landing off on the roof?

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4/20/12
Yes, either that, or a very active neighbor. LOL. - jus'

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I started an indoor garden this year! I planted some herbs, vegetables and even some flowers which I got from internet florists uk. I cannot wait until I can harvest my first vegetables, especially the tomatoes haha* I would wish for the future that I could move into a larger apartment with a small garden outside, because I think it's really relaxing to do gardening.

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6/15/12
The bad news is that Dallas (DFW metroplex) got bombarded with huge hail a couple of days ago. The good news is that my little herb garden was well protected by the wire mesh that I'd installed all around and over it. Want to see a hailstone that hit my car? - jus'

cute little hailstones


hailstone that hit my car


this hailstone, one of many